LAS VEGAS – Walking into media day for “The Ultimate Fighter: Live” – the upcoming 15th season of the UFC’s reality series – head coach Dominick Cruz thought back to his school days.

As 32 lightweight fighters enter “TUF” and look for direction from Cruz and fellow head coach Urijah Faber, he knows it can be a surreal moment.

So Cruz – and a coaching staff that includes rotating members Phil Davis, Eric DelFierro, Ross Pearson, Shannon Slack, Wilson Reis, Lloyd Irvin, Doug Balzarin and others – are there to offer support.

“It’s like you’re walking into your first day of school,” Cruz joked with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “You don’t know who you’re going to meet. You don’t know where the teacher is going to sit you. You just don’t want to be in the front next to the stinky kid in class who pees himself everyday.

“Although I may have been the stinky guy at one time, I’ve learned to take care of things to be on top of my game.”

And that’s what Cruz plans to offer his team. Following Friday’s live finale on FX – which includes 16 live elimination-round fights during a two-and-a-half-hour runtime – the 16 official cast members will be drafted into teams of two who compete in a tournament format. For Cruz, who puts his UFC bantamweight title on the line in a rubber match with Faber on July 7 at UFC 148, he’s taking a simple approach to team selections.

“My thing is to go in there and be hands-on, take it one day at the time, and give these guys respect right off the bat that all fighters want,” he said. “That’s a big reason fighters fight: to get respect.”

In fact, Cruz is still working to get his. A former WEC champ, Cruz maintained the title when he was moved to the UFC in 2011. He’s won both his UFC fights, holds a title, is well entrenched in MMA’s top-10 pound-for-pound rankings, and he and Faber are now the first lighter-weight coaches in the seven-year history of the influential “TUF” series.

Still, as he looks around the TUF Training Center and sees the artwork of the UFC’s biggest stars, he knows he still has a way to go.

“I’m 2-0 in the UFC, but I feel that my career just began,” he said. “I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot of things these guys (featured on the wall) have, but really in the limelight, it’s just beginning where people can follow it and see what I’m doing and the reason I do things and my fight style.”

Of course, Cruz’s time in the UFC has been largely defined by his feud with Faber. It started four years ago when Cruz was left off a WEC 26 poster and his opponent, Faber, wasn’t. So when WEC officials instructed Cruz to autograph a stack of posters, he scribbled his signature over the picture of Faber’s face. Faber went on to get the win in that fight, but Cruz enacted his revenge a few years later at UFC 132 in his UFC debut.

Many expect fireworks now that they’re both coaches. Cruz, though, said it’s just a day at the office.

“Everybody has that guy they just don’t get along with that they work with, and that’s just the way it is,” he said. “Either you deal with it, or you let it ruin your day.

“I’m going to see him for a while, so I better get used to it. And I really don’t have it hard. The [cast members] here at the fighter house have it hard. They have to sleep next to the guys they’re going to be fighting. So I have it pretty easy.”

So Cruz isn’t going to hide his disdain for his opponent, but he’s not going to feed into it either. He said he can simply make the biggest statement by leading his team to success.

“All I can do is be me and be real,” he said. “You can’t try to be someone you’re not for 13 weeks on a live television show. It just doesn’t work. I’m just going to be me. Me and Faber don’t get along, but I do have a respect for the things he’s done and him as a fighter. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to put it on come him July 7, and I’m going to put it on him in this show and out-coach him.”

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